1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to shackling heavy equipment, particularly to the manner in which the shackle is lockingly engaged.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heavy equipment, such as truck tractors and trailers, construction or farm vehicles, must frequently be left unattended on the work site during job progress, or stored in large, open equipment yards. The equipment may be dangerous if operated by non-authorized and unfamiliar personnel. Furthermore, security of the heavy equipment is always of concern.
A variety of shackling locks are known to the art. The most common are cable padlocks. These prior art cable padlocks are inflexible in use for heavy equipment as they provide a particular length of cable which forms a certain sized loop when both cable ends are engaged in the padlock. As a result, a particular one of these prior art padlocks is not easily adaptable between various types and sizes of equipment. Rather, each piece of equipment must have its own particularly sized conventional cable padlock. Equally important is that existing locks are of insufficient size and strength.
Accordingly, prior art security devices for heavy equipment have been found to be unsatisfactory.